Read Online Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations by Rich Karlgaard, Michael S. Malone - Free Book Online

eighty-eight male undergraduates, found that context-dependent people are more susceptible to social cues than context-independent people are. 9
    Here’s the thing: a team needs both independent and socially attuned thinkers. But leaders also need to know the distribution of the different types of thinkers on the team and manage accordingly. So, go ahead and test potential team members for their thinking style—not to exclude one type or another but to include the right number of each type.
    At this point, you may be thinking: Why do I want diversity in thinking styles? Why shouldn’t I go just for the independent thinkers—after all, aren’t they more creative than the conformists? Won’t that increase the likelihood of the team’s coming up with something radically new and valuable?
    Actually, no. Research on radical-innovation teams shows that adding some conformity to a team may actually drive creativity.In particular—and counterintuitively—the leavening addition of a conformist can dramatically increase a team’s radical innovations. Studies have found that the optimal balance of people on radical-innovation teams requires that 50 percent of the members have the following distribution of personality types: 10
    •        Creative—20 to 30 percent. Teams with too many creative types struggle with implementation. That’s because (surprise!) creatives are not always practical, are not concerned with rules, and may initiate conflict.
    •        Conformist—10 to 20 percent. Conformists are the backbone of the team; and their key role is to support the creatives. Conformists help boost cooperation and improve team confidence. They make teams predictable, in a good way.
    •        Detail-oriented—As much as 10 percent. Detail-oriented people may often be risk-averse, but they help strengthen important team functions such as budgetary control. The detailers make sure that the team is still there each morning.
    Brain Differences
    The notion of left- and right-brain thinking entered everyday language a couple of decades ago. Even though recent research suggests that there may not be any measurable physiological differences in the two brain hemispheres, most of us do recognize the personality differences between logical and creative types. 11 So-called left-brain thinkers typically engage in more logical and analytical approaches to problem solving. In contrast, right-brain thinkers are more nonlinear and intuitive in their approaches.
    This difference (which has obvious connections to the socially contextual and independent thinking we just described) also turns out to be very important in the composition of teams. The goal,whenever possible, is to create, if you will, whole-brain teams in which the two brain types are in relative balance.
    Whole-brain teams carry with them a wide variety of problem solving and critical thinking approaches that are vital to innovating in dynamic environments. That’s why some organizations already make it a practice to create whole-brain teams.
    For example, Jerry Hirshberg at Nissan Design ensured intellectual diversity by pairing free-form thinkers with analytical designers. 12 Hirshberg realized that “sometimes the right person for the job is two people.” Therefore, when hiring new employees, he worked to create divergent pairs by bringing in two people and coupling them because of their cognitive differences. Hirshberg found that the continuous tension within the pairs, as well as their opposing views, created a more innovative environment, one that led to some of Nissan’s most successful vehicles, including the Pathfinder and the Infiniti series of automobiles.
    But bolting together left- and right-brained team members is rarely enough. Rather, leaders need to do more than just assemble whole-brain teams; they also need to harness the diversity in those whole-brain teams. They can do this through what is called creative abrasion .
    Creative